The Elric Enigma
by Auto Pilote
Summary: Alfons has always been good at solving puzzles, but Ed is one he just can't figure out. As he delves into the enigma that is Edward Elric, he may be in over his head, specifically head-over-heels. But is it possible Ed is more than Alfons bargained for? Is that even possible, equivalent exchange and what not? Major Edhei shipping, smarm for now and smut to come! (no pun intended)
1. First Encounter

**Heeeey readers. Finding a cover for this story was killer. I mean, I just realized how Ed is always making weird faces and he doesn't just smile nice _at all_. Bet he was a fun child to take xmas card pictures with. anywho, this is so going to be completed. i mean it. for real. working on the second chapter as we speak... or as i yabber on. gotta go write some more!**

**oh btw i'm making nice chapter names now (THEY'R OH SO WITTY AND PRETTY YA GOTTA SEE) and i'm ditching my ed-win story, those two are now my NOTP.**

**enjoy the popcorn and the smarm, yo. **

Alfons Hiederich could never leave a puzzle as a child. Even as he neared adulthood, he was constantly solving them on whatever paper he had, or the paper napkins from the bar. As of late, he had grown out of the habit mostly, leaving behind the crude and ungainly child's puzzles of his youth. Upon joining the University, he was entertained briefly before any challenge that math, physics, or engineering could offer was stripped away, and the answers quickly fell into place. Soon his lectures no longer provided too much interest when he wasn't designing rockets. He had become bored once more with the wrestling with logic, now that nothing stumped him anymore. It was no longer a match of reason and wills, now he only needed to throw a few deductions and switches before each secret quickly revealed itself.

During his lectures he had taken to doodling, though he still took his notes dully, and absentmindedly he created more puzzles, but it was little more than mental masturbation. Then one warm afternoon, when the sun was setting early, Edward Elric joined his class.

From the moment he had first encountered him, Edward Elric had been a mystery to Alfons Hiederich. He was a textbook narcissist; he was a case to be cracked. He was an unsolved equation, he was the variables. He was the question and answer; he might have been the last digit of pi. He was an enigma. Just as Alfons thought he had found whatever made Edward tick, the question Ed presented changed, or added another step he had to go back and rethink. There was still so much he didn't know about him, so many missing factors: why did he walk with a limp on cold days, why did he favor his right hand to the extent of avoiding his left? When he was bored, why did he draw pentagrams inside other shapes, with geometric perfection, often noting the corners with little symbols he never explained? Why, whenever irate with an inanimate object, would he clap his hands together suddenly, and hold them in the position of someone that was praying? Alfons thought he had solved that last one, until he learned Ed was purely atheistic. However, despite all these mysteries, there was one that stumped Alfons the most.

Why couldn't he keep his eyes off him? At first he hadn't noticed from his seat in the lecture hall, a stack of books obscuring his view, and it hadn't helped that he had his head down on his desk. He'd gotten up to leave for the lavatory, almost tripping over his new classmate.

"Sorry, I didn't see you there-" he began, his mouth apologizing as his eyes gawked at the face before him. Golden hair tied back in a thick braid, and hypnotic eyes of the same color encased in shapely eyes. He stopped stammering out an apology, licking his lips as his eyes followed the edges of sharp cheekbones and sturdy jaw line, to a hair of luscious lips, bent into a frown.

"Who are you calling so short you couldn't see even with a magnifying glass-" Ed snarled in a deep, guttural growl that the texture of made Alfons' heart grow faint. Ed's glaring eyes seemed ready to shoot daggers as they dared Alfons to try to say "short".

"N-nobody," he stuttered, heart dropping into his stomach as he suddenly feared for his life. "I just wanted to, uh apologize for uh, tripping over y-" like a blond fox after prey Ed issued another warning growl. Something about the noise's primal nature stirred unknown emotions in Alfons' stomach. "Uh, y… your _long legs_," he managed, as politely as he could, trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. The specimen he encountered wasn't what he would call short, but calling him tall was stretching it. Alfons predicted that his height was superior to Ed's by at least a few inches.

He returned to his seat, not daring to approach the lion's den again. He yawned at his desk, unable to stop glancing at Ed or keep his mind on what the professor was saying. At one moment or another, it occurred to his that Ed was like a lion. A small lion cub that was not yet a hunter, albeit, that could easily unleash a hidden ferocity. But he was like a lion, with a long flowing mane of perfect hair and spellbinding eyes. He was a lion, in how he was perched in his chair, lazily, proudly, with an air of earned arrogance, as if the room were his kingdom, and any prey was his to take, and if he should've fancied a tall, quivering gazelle with short blond fur and sparkling blue eyes-

Alfons blinked. He was in an empty class room, not the grassy plains of some African safari, there was no heard of running gazelles, only the shuffle of students piling out the door, and his proud lion cub was leaving as well. The bell had rung and the class was dismissed. He hadn't heard the bell, only noticed that Ed had stood up and left, finding that he had been staring at him. He could feel the blood rush to his face as he realized the embarrassment. Quickly he gathered his books together and excused himself from the room as well.

He ran after Ed, the rush of adrenaline in the moment moving his feet and stirring other apparatus of his body's lower half, as well as his heart, but Ed had vanished. He panted in the empty corridor, looking around wildly for him. Often times girls he had never cared too much for had chased him, but now he was chasing. But alas, he sighed, he had lost his prey. Or his hunter. In all these metaphors, he was confused as to what he was supposed to be. He had never been very good in his Literary Arts classes.

Shoulders slumped; he dragged his once light feet to the evening lecture. Valiantly, he had searched in vain. He wandered the vaulted halls of the university a half hour longer, but Ed was nowhere to be found, as well as his reason as to searching for him. He went to his next class, puzzled, stumped for the first time in a while. He wasn't completely sure why he had been looking for the beautiful stranger. Was he even beautiful? Alfons shrugged to himself. What was he doing, thinking a guy had been even pleasant to look at? Sighing, he told himself it was stupid. Who had hair that long anyway? Girls did. He decided it was a logical and socially acceptable conclusion to reach, that he had merely gone too long without a girlfriend, and the long hair and evening sunlight, and intense boredom had confused him momentarily. With that answer in mind, for the rest of his warm autumn classes until the winter, he was left with two mysteries regarding Edward Elric: Why Ed vanished so suddenly after class, and secondly, how Alfons had been so preoccupied with the thought of Edward that he hadn't managed to take a single note for the rest of that lecture.


	2. AHHH I CAN'T THINK OF A NAAAAME

**okay, the smarm may last a little longer yet. i forgot to mention this draws from both manga, anime and brotherhood, and some other fanfictions i've read. smut soon, tho, i promise! bear with me, it's about to get fluffy and sad.**

**back to the popcorn.**

**no good titles yet, sorry. **

After a weeks' study in the same afternoon lecture, Alfons discovered the answer to his second mystery, how he had been so preoccupied with the thought of Edward that he hadn't managed to take a single note for the rest of that lecture when he first met the younger blond. It was a constant, mich like the capital "G" used in physics. It was a number for the Law of Universal Gravitation, or simply called law of attraction. No one knew why it was the number it was, but that it was the same in every equation nonetheless. That was what a constant was.

And Edward Elric was a constant himself, at least in the fact that as long as Edward was in sight, Alfons was going to stare at him and concoct odd fantasies that he was having trouble explaining to himself. Every day he sat and sighed, swooned and stared at Edward, who had changed his seat by his second day there. It hurt to think Ed had changed seats because of his staring, but it seemed the only answer possible. Ed seemed to make a point of sitting in front of Al by a few desks, where Al could see him but he couldn't see Al. Unless he were to stretch his arms and lean back all the way to look at Al upside-down, and maybe flash that devil-may-care grin at Al, then with that right hand he seemed to favor so much, he would stroke Al's jaw line without a trace of clumsiness. His fingers might linger near Al's chin, which he could take in that white-gloved hand and lead it to his own. For a moment, skin would graze skin until their lips found each other–

Face flushing red, Al shook his head and forced himself to look away. He had been fantasizing, _again_. sometimes they took place in the classroom, sometimes in wild, exotic places, or in store doorways when hiding from the rain. Ed ward didn't seem to like the rain; his ever so slight limp worsened every time it rained outside. By the end of the semester, in the winter, Al was intent on finally finding Ed outside the classroom even though he was sure Ed was avoiding him. As the weather grew worse, Ed's limp inside the classroom was more noticeable, and Al wondered if it had anything to do with the cold, or, the damp. Ed came to class later each day, and when Al arrived near the same time he noticed how slowly Ed tread on the slick pavement, inching carefully around ice and puddles, careful not to get his feet wet. One such evening, he found Ed still outside the classroom, trying to get away.

It was cold, and the wind stung. His coat was barely enough to keep the chilly winter air at bay. The skies were gray, filled over the brink with darkened clouds. A brisk wind bit his cheek, turning his head to see Edward, shuffling away. He called out his name a few times, the first attempt dying in his throat as he fought back the red in his cheeks.

Edward gave sudden start at hearing his voice and seeing him. He made to turn away from Alfons, but he caught up to him quickly. Alfons stopped next to him, careful to keep a pleasant distance. Edward forced a glare at him, scowling. It was only once Alfons repeated his name a second time in greeting did he realize he had nothing to say to him, despite the countless times he had fantasized about. Somehow most of them involved Ed instigating things, catching his attention with that devilish smile. Awkwardly, he attempted that smile, scratching his head as his face turned redder.

"Um… I thought we could go to the pub, and grab a beer?" he managed to say, avoiding Ed's eyes. He glanced to them. A faint smile tugged the corner of Ed's mouth. It was the first indication of such an expression that Alfons had ever received from him thus far. Ed chuckled, and messed up Alfons' hair in older-brother sort of way. "Alright," he said, looking amused. "Show me to it."


	3. Familiar Face

**never mind the witty-oh-so-pretty titles, i'm just stealing them from romance novels. (no, you don't get kudos if you recognize them).**

**anywho, smut prolonged yet again! sorry for the short chapter, next one will definately have some produce-type things in it... BUT FOR NOW:**

They walked to the bar together, though Alfons' head was still so thick with fantasy he was unable to tell if it was really happening or not. On the way to the bar he fantasized a few too many times that Ed might slip a little on the ice and he would catch him, hold him close in his arms, feeling the shape of his arms and shoulders through layers of clothes. As it was, Ed did slip and nearly fell, but Alfons was too preoccupied with his daydream to react in time.

At the bar, the one where so many of the students from their university gathered to drink instead of study, they arrived damp with melted snowflakes.

Al brought two drinks from the bar, his face reddening again as he saw Ed had chosen a small table for two in the corner. Briefly he was glad of the darkness inside the bar, as he sat down next to Ed and handed him his drink. For a few minutes an uncomfortable silence sat between the two of them in the rowdy tones of others' conversations as Al stared into his drink and neither of them said anything. Every time Alfons thought to say something, he felt his face grow hotter. Ed finished his drink first and glanced out the sightless window of the pub.

"We, uh…you sat next to me your first day here," Alfons began, as he felt the effects of the alcohol set in. Ed raised an eyebrow. Obviously he hadn't had enough alcohol to overcome barriers of awkwardness.

"It was the only empty seat at the time," Ed responded tersely. "I didn't think there was any significance to it."

"N-no! I didn't mean, I just, I thought we could be friendly, friend-like," Alfons w

"Friends?" Ed finished for him. Alfons nodded profusely. "Why?"

"W-why?" Alfons sputtered. "B-Because we're in the same class, and I thought you looked lonely and a bit homesick-"

Ed looked up suddenly at that word. Then he shrugged. "I guess I am a bit…homesick."

Al prodded him for more details on his life, excited at the probability of knowing _more_ about _Edward_, but it took a few more drinks for the puzzle that was Edward Elric to even begin to loosen a few clues. But unlike others he had known who easily flung garbled secrets in rowdy bouts of laughter, Ed stared into the abyss of his drink, solemnly drinking himself into a depressed state. At first, he drew pentagrams on the bar napkins, drawing other shapes intertwined with them until the standard of perfection he started with devolved into sorry scribbles. Abandoning the uncooperative fountain pen, he began at Alfons' insistence.

"I my home is... I can never return there…" With softened eyes, he nearly whispered, "...what I would give if I could go back." From somewhere in the bar someone was shouting how they would give an arm if it meant they could pass their engineering final.

He smiled cynically. "An arm? I'd give an arm and a leg. Then the other arm and leg. And anything else it cost."

For a moment Alfons was shocked at how bitterly sincere Ed was, and that he didn't even seem to be talking to Alfons anymore. "I'd give the whole damn world, Al, if it meant-"

"It's Alfons!" Alfons burst out, desperate that Ed would notice him there.

"Whasa matter, you don't like being called Al?" he asked, his words slurring as he sat up to look at Alfons.

"Yes. Please. Just Afons. I'd prefer you didn't shorten it."

Ed held Al's gaze a moment, as if he was seeing him for the first time, before he looked away and sighed. "Back home… I had a brother. I haven't heard from him in the last year, I don't even know if he's still alive. I haven't seen his face since he was ten and I was twelve. It's been so long, sometimes I can't remember it. But I imagine if I saw him again today, here, somehow, he might look a bit like you. I thought that when I first came here."

Alfons swallowed, his throat dry. "What was his name?" He was sorry he asked the moment he heard the answer.

"Al. Short for Alphonse."

Suddenly Alfons felt the need to flee the establishment and transfer to the morning class. The thought that he could have hurt him so by resurfacing memories brought tears to his eyes. He stood, blurting out some words of apology. He made to leave but there was a hand on his sleeve, cold with a weak grasp and inanimate feel. He stopped half out of shock at the touch, seeing Ed's left hand hold a place on his coat arm.

"Wait, I can't afford to lose-" he stopped his plead, forcing back the desperation. He bit his lip and finished, "Lose another friend." Alfons' heart went out to him, before he realized how long he had been staring into his eyes.

"Besides," Ed added sheepishly, "You can't offer to buy me a drink and leave me to pick up the tab."

Alfons attempted a smile as he returned to his seat. He attempted to return the statement as wittily as he could, but tripped over his own meaning. "Fair enough," he said. "But you can't call me a friend and avoid me." He shrugged. "Then what am I?" Ed asked, holding Alfons' gaze with unwavering eyes. Alfons blushed and glanced away.

"Study partner? I haven't been taking any notes lately."


End file.
